22 September 2007 - farewell old girl...

Today was a sad day. I made good progress and wanted to strip down the old chassis and remove all the bits I could before I scrapped the worst bits of the old girl. Unfortunately the worst bits amounted to most of her!

All the running gear was finally removed and I lifted the engine and gearbox away from the frame. With the bits stripped off and piled up on the drive, it is sad to see it end like that for a good portion of the old girl. That said, I will be building her up again with good bits and so she should go one for at least another 40 years!

The first few pictures today show the replacement bulkhead and some repair work that I have started doing. Previous bad repairs are coming off to be replaced by a better attempt and seam welded this time as opposed to spot welded like the last ones.

The remaining pictures show the strip down of the chassis and whilst I managed to get a good deal of the bits apart with the aid of an air impact wrench and lever bar, the rear trunnion on the passenger side has the bolt siezed in so will require some workshop time to remove later. The front end was quite straight forward and came apart quite quickly, the complete stripdown done in around 4 hours!

I have noticed a number of other bits I now need, like the passenger Front trunnion - it is badly worn, and numerous rubbers where the side panels mount to the chassis and bonnet. I could also do with a puller for the rear hubs, they are extremely tight and so I will be looking on ebay for a suitable tool. I think there is a specific one you need, so I will take a look in the workshop manual I bought from ebay - a great buy and well worth the £25 investment!

Talking of ebay, I managed to do rather well and picked up a secondhand engine (needs stripping down), a gearbox, a bonnet frame and the top of a convertible tub for a princely sum of £4.50 off ebay. Bargain or what! While I was collecting them from a really nice guy in West Sussex, he brought out a great hood frame which quickly became mine for £50! I felt much better having given him £60 for his trouble (generous tip I know!).

So I nearly have all the body work sorted in terms of panels and parts, so a lot of the major stuff is sorted in terms of sourcing the bits. Still got to get a front valance though - I will probably go for a new one of these, as I cannot seem to see them come up secondhand. I am not keen on a fibreglass one so I will pursue a metal one first.

Next job on the cards is to get the chassis components cleaned, painted and put on the new chassis....